Over the past year we have worked on a range of initiatives to help improve the standard and safety of private healthcare provision.
 
The Independent Healthcare Providers Network (IHPN) asked us to support them in creating a short film to help clarify patients’ expectations of private healthcare, helping them in their decision making.

If you, or any of your friends and family, are thinking of the private healthcare route, please look at our film – it will give you some valuable background information.

We are also delighted to be working with the Independent Sector Complaints Adjudication Service (ISCAS) who provide independent adjudication on complaints about independent healthcare providers. It is a voluntary subscriber scheme to which most independent healthcare providers subscribe.

Both ISCAS and the Patients Association recognise that good practice in complaints handling is vitally important to enable patients and their families to have confidence in their care and treatment, and we regularly work together.
 
Over the last year we have helped revise their patients guide following consultation with patients and reviewed their website and training pack.

For the last few weeks we have been running this survey to find out just how stressful it is to be in the situation of discharging your loved ones from hospital and into care.  Have you been in this situation with either family or close friends? If so, then please take this last opportunity to fill out our short survey – your experiences, whether good or bad, will really help us with our assessment. Thank you.

The Patient Safety Congress takes place over two days – 13^th and 14^th July – and brings together over 1,000 people, all with an interest in helping to transform patient safety. Speakers will include national leaders, policy makers, frontline innovators and patient advocates, and we are working with them to ensure that every session includes patient representatives sharing their thoughts and experiences.

The Congress committee is currently looking for patient advocates particularly in areas including:

• Maternity and neonatal care
• Patient and family involvement in incident investigations
• Diversity and equality in the workforce and its impact on patient care
• The use of technology in patient care
• Co-production between patients and organisations
• The impact of staff shortages on patient care
• Learning from patient feedback and complaints
• End-of-life/palliative care
• Sepsis, AKI and patient deterioration
• Sexual abuse and human rights breaches in mental health wards
• Care home safety
• Medication errors and delayed discharge

Have you got a story to share and would like to be involved? If so, we would love to put you in touch with the organisers. Please contact us at mailbox@patients-association.org.uk and we’ll share your details. Thank you.

The National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE) provides national guidance and advice to improve health and social care. Its role is to improve results for patients using the NHS and other public health and social care services.
 
A key part of its role is to produce evidence-based guidance and advice for health, public health and social care practitioners. This is developed by independent committees, including professionals and lay members and consulted on by stakeholders, and we can all get involved.
 
Whether you would like to join a committee or working group, comment on guidance that is being developed, or share your experiences as a patient expert, NICE would like to hear from you.
 
Full details on how to get involved and relevant contact details can be found on their website.

Our helpline received a call this week from a gentleman in a care home in Lincolnshire. He rang to ask our advice as he felt he was being put under pressure to be discharged home too early.
 
Paul* had undergone surgery after breaking his pelvis and was subsequently moved to a care home for rehabilitation and physiotherapy.
 
Over the past two weeks, Paul’s doctor had been assessing his progress and appeared eager to discharge him home as soon as possible. Paul was firmly of the of the view that, not only was he not fit enough, but his home did not have a working bathroom due to renovation work that stopped when he went into hospital.
 
Paul had contacted his local authority requesting they restart the renovation so that it could be completed as soon as possible, making his home habitable.
 
We advised Paul that he should discuss his concerns with the senior consultant responsible for his care. We also advised him to discuss the contents of his care plan to ensure that it considered his home facilities as well as his mobility needs.
 
We then suggested Paul asks to speak to a social worker to discuss any additional care he may need once at home.
 
Finally, we told Paul to make sure his GP practice was aware of his situation.
 
As we do with all our callers, we assured Paul that he could contact us again if he needed any further advice or information.
*Name changed for privacy

About Us

Our vision is that health and social care will be delivered in a way that meets every person’s health and social care needs.

Our mission is to give effect to the patient voice, to improve patient experience and support people to engage fully in their own care. Find out more about our values on our website. 

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